1. COMM 4170-01: Applied Organizational Communication
Instructor: Dan Lair
Day Six: Systems Thinking Approaches to Organizational Communication
September 14, 2005

2. Today’s Agenda Overview of Systems Thinking Discussion of Byrd, Senge
Application of Systems Thinking and Classical/HR approaches to case study, “A Matter of Perspective”

3. Three Views of the Nature of Organizational Culture
Culture is something that an organization “has”: The variable approach
Culture is something that an organization “is”: The root metaphor approach
Culture is something that an organization is “in”: The contextual approach

4. Culture as Something an Organization “Has”
Culture as a variable
Two key 1982 management books:
Deal & Kennedy’s Corporate Cultures
Peters & Waterman’s In Search of Excellence
Focus on developing “strong” vs. “weak” organizational cultures.
Functionalist perspective on organizational culture

5. Culture as Something an Organization “Is”
Symbolist perspective on organizational culture.
“More things are going on in organizations than getting the job done. People do get the job done, true (though probably not with the singleminded task-orientation that organizational communication texts would have us believe); but people in organizations also gossip, joke, knife one another, initiate romantic involvements, cue new employees to ways of doing the least amount of work that still avoids hassles from a supervisor, talk sports, arrange picnics” (Pacanowsky and O’Donnell-Trujillo, 1982)
Organizational culture cannot be intentionally manipulated by managers

6. Culture as Something an Organization is “In”
Modernist Perspective
Geert Hofstede and “national culture”
Power distance
Uncertainty avoidance
Individualism
Masculinity
Postmodern Perspective
Influence of Cultural Studies (Taylor)
“Host” cultures
Effect of broad culture on organizational life
“Cultural communication about organization”

7. Three Lenses to “Look” at an Organizational Culture
Joanne Martin (1992)
Integration Perspective: unity and consensus
Differentiation Perspective: inconsistency, subcultures
Fragmentation Perspective: complexity, multiplicity
These perspectives describe the researcher/consultant’s viewpoint, not the culture itself!!!

8. The Cultural Approach: Conception of Communication
Ongoing activity creating, expressing, maintaining, and transforming organizational reality
Communication’s function is maintenance and innovation (of meaning).
Informal, emergent, multidirectional

9. Discussion of Pacanowsky and O’Donnell-Trujillo
What is the “managerial bias” of “traditional” org. comm. research? What are the potential problems of that view?
What are the implications of the “web” metaphor for organizational culture? How does it help us to “see” organizations differently?
Nuts and Bolts: From the cultural perspective, what do you look for when you study an organization?
What are the advantages of the cultural viewpoints? What weaknesses might you identify?

10. Case Study: “A Matter of Perspective”
In your theory specialization groups, work through this case study in the following four steps:
Describe the case in general, from your theoretical perspective
Diagnose the central communication problem in the case, based on your “reading” of both broad patterns and specific details.
Suggest potential solutions for that problem, based on the Classical/HR perspective.
Assess the appropriateness of the Classical/HR perspective for this particular case. Are there weaknesses/blind spots that hinder your ability to suggest adequate solutions?
Be prepared to return to the full class to discuss the case in-depth, based upon the conclusions you have reached as a group.